Karapiru, an Awá man who survived the massacre of his family by gunmen.
© Fiona Watson/Survival

Indians from the tiny Awá tribe will stage a three day protest in the Brazilian Amazon from August 1st to 3rd, to prove that they exist and to demand that their land be protected from invasion.

The event, named ‘We Exist: Land and Life for the Awá Hunter-Gatherers’, has been organized by Brazilian indigenous rights organization, CIMI, the local Catholic church and several indigenous groups.

Around 100 Awá Indians are expected to participate in the protest. For most, it will be the first time they have left their forest home.

The protest will take place in Ze Doca, a town near the Awá’s land in Maranhão state in the eastern Amazon. It is in response to remarks by the local mayor’s office denying that the Awá exist.

The Awá are one of only two nomadic hunter gatherers tribes remaining in Brazil. More than 60 Awá have no contact with outsiders and are in grave danger from illegal loggers.

Although Awá lands have been legally recognized, the Indians are being targeted by loggers, who are bulldozing roads into the forests, and by settlers, who hunt the game the Awá rely on, exposing the Indians to disease and violence.

A federal judge ruled in June 2009 that all invaders must leave the Awá territory within 180 days. However, the ruling has since been suspended, and deforestation and invasions are increasing.

Stephen Corry, Director of Survival, said today, ‘Denying the existence of indigenous peoples is self-fulfilling and belongs to the colonial past. It’s also a crime: deny they exist and they won’t exist, they’ll disappear like so many Brazilian tribes before them. If Brazil wants to be viewed as a leading nation, the authorities must no longer tolerate violations like this.’

Survival’s Research and Field Director Fiona Watson, who has visited the Awá, is available for interview.

Two Na’vi protested outside Vedanta’s AGM.
© Survival

Two Na’vi from James Cameron’s film Avatar today paid a visit to British mining company Vedanta Resources’ Annual General Meeting in Westminster, London.

The Na’vi joined tribal rights organization Survival in a demonstration against Vedanta, over its controversial plan to mine the sacred mountain of India’s Dongria Kondh tribe.

Martin Horwood MP, Chair of the all-party parliamentary group for tribal peoples, also attended the AGM, whilst former Monty Python star Michael Palin sent a message of support: ‘I’ve been to the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa and seen the forces of money and power that Vedanta Resources have arrayed against a people who have occupied their land for thousands of years, who husband the forest sustainably and make no great demands on the state or the government. The tribe I visited simply want to carry on living in the villages that they and their ancestors have always lived in.’

Vedanta’s AGM was the same day that British Prime Minister David Cameron met Indian PM Dr. Manmohan Singh. Martin Horwood MP wrote to David Cameron urging him to raise the issue of the plight of the Dongria Kondh at the meeting.

The Dongria Kondh tribe have been described as ‘the real Avatar tribe’ because their plight closely parallels that of the aliens in James Cameron’s blockbuster.

Vedanta Resources is majority-owned by billionaire Mayfair resident Anil Agarwal.

In the past month Vedanta has suffered three major blows to its mining plans. India’s Environment and Forests Minister ordered an investigation into the Dongria’s rights to their forest; the Chief Secretary of Odisha state ordered a separate probe on the same topic; and leading Dutch investment firm PGGM announced it had sold its stake in Vedanta over human rights concerns.

Previous shareholders who have sold their stake include the Norwegian government, the Church of England and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Download photos of the demonstration at Vedanta’s AGM (more photos will be available shortly):

Two Na’vi protested outside Vedanta’s AGM.
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Credit: © Survival   The Dongria Kondh’s plight closely parallels that of the Na’vi from Avatar.
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Credit: © Survival   Two Na’vi protested outside Vedanta’s AGM.
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Credit: © Survival   Two Na’vi protested outside Vedanta’s AGM.
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Credit: © Survival  

A dam being built in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.
© Survival

Brazilian Indians are occupying the site of a hydroelectric plant, demanding that they be compensated for the damage caused to them by the dam, that their land rights be upheld and that no more harmful dams be built in the region.

Around 300 Indians from eleven tribes, including about 50 Enawene Nawe Indians, arrived Sunday at the site of the Dardanelos dam in Mato Grosso state in the Amazon, and more Indians are continuing to join the group.

100 construction workers were held hostage at the construction site on Sunday. The protesters have since allowed the workers to leave, with several company officials taking their place. According to reports, nobody has been injured.

The Indians say the dam is being built on a sacred ancient burial ground.

An Enawene Nawe spokesman told Survival, ‘We joined the protest to raise awareness about the damage the dams cause, about the recognition of our land and the dangers of future projects like this’.

77 small hydroelectric dams are planned for the Juruena River, upstream of the Enawene Nawe’s land. Five are already under construction.

Another series of dams is planned for the Aripuanã river, including the Dardanelos dam – the site of the protest- which will affect the Cinta Larga and Arara tribes.

The Indians were not consulted about the projects before they started, and their livelihoods are now threatened.

The Enawene Nawe say that the dams are polluting the river water and killing the fish. This is preventing the Enawene Nawe from performing yãkwa, an important ritual in which they build intricate dams across the smaller rivers and trap fish in large baskets.

This year and last year the Indians caught almost no fish, a disaster for the tribe, for whom fish is a vital part of their diet. The government had to bring tons of farmed fish to the tribe.

The Indians are urging that they be fairly compensated for the damage already incurred by the dams, that their lands be mapped out and protected as a matter of urgency, and that no more dams be built without the Indians’ approval.

Earlier this month, Enawene Nawe and other Indians protested against the dams in the Amazon town of Sapezal.

Chief Minister Taib Mahmud was met by demonstrators protesting at the destruction of the Penan's rainforest.
© Survival

Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud faced protests by supporters of the Penan in the UK today, while British MPs have written to him expressing concern over the newly documented cases of sexual abuse of Penan women.

Protestors from Survival and other organizations greeted the Chief Minister in Oxford this morning, where he had travelled with cabinet colleagues to give the keynote speech at the Inaugural Oxford Global Islamic Branding and Marketing Forum. The protestors held placards reading ‘Penan tribe say NO to logging’ and ‘Malaysia: Stop destroying the Penan tribe’. The protest forced the Chief Minister to enter the building through a side entrance.

The chairman of the British parliament’s All Party Parliamentary Group for Tribal peoples, MP Martin Horwood, has written to Taib Mahmud on the occasion of the Chief Minister’s visit to the UK. ‘The Penan have frequently been subject to violence and intimidation at the hands of loggers operating on their land… Without recognition of their land rights, the Penan are struggling to provide for themselves, and are left vulnerable to violence and exploitation’.

Mr Horwood urged the Chief Minister to ‘halt logging and other developments on the Penan’s land without their free, prior and informed consent, according to international law’ and to ‘ensure that Penan women and girls are protected from sexual violence and the perpetrators of such abuse brought to justice’.

Download a copy of the All Party Parliamentary Group’s letter to the Chief Minister

Download photos of the Oxford demonstration:

Chief Minister Taib Mahmud was met by demonstrators protesting at the destruction of the Penan's rainforest.
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Credit: © Survival   Chief Minister Taib Mahmud was met by demonstrators protesting at the destruction of the Penan's rainforest.
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Credit: © Survival  

Michael Palin
© John Swannell

Actor, presenter and explorer Michael Palin has sent a message in support of the Dongria Kondh tribe of India, who are resisting a mine on their land by FTSE 100 company Vedanta Resources.

In a statement, Michael Palin said, ‘I’ve been to the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa and seen the forces of money and power that Vedanta Resources have arrayed against a people who have occupied their land for thousands of years, who husband the forest sustainably and make no great demands on the state or the government. The tribe I visited simply want to carry on living in the villages that they and their ancestors have always lived in.’

On July 28th, Vedanta’s Annual General Meeting in London will be attended by protestors from Survival International and other groups keen to draw shareholders’ attention to Vedanta’s human rights and environmental record.

PIRC, the shareholder lobby group, have announced that they are urging shareholders to vote against re-electing three of the company’s directors on human rights, safety and environmental grounds.

The impact of nickel mining in the concession of Rio Tuba Nickel Mining Corporation (RTNMC).
© Dario Novellino

The Palawan tribe of the Philippines have one more chance to stop companies from mining on their land. A government panel meeting on July 30th will decide whether or not to give the go-ahead to two companies who have applied to mine on their territory, which is also a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Last month, 600 indigenous people and farmers held a rally, calling on the provincial government to prevent two companies, Macro Asia and Ipilan Nickel Mining Corporation (INC), from mining nickel on their land. As a result of these protests the provincial government agreed to freeze the mining applications pending further investigation.

The Palawan provincial government has now endorsed both companies’ mining plans, despite the protests by the indigenous land owners and those objecting to the idea of mining inside a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.

The final step in the approval process for the mining applications will take place at a meeting of a statutory panel known as the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development at the end of July.

Maman Tuwa, a Palawan elder, fears that mining will destroy his community. ‘If our mountains are deforested, how are we going to survive? What are we going to plant if the soil of the uplands will be washed down to the lowlands? How are we going to feed our children? We’ll surely die.’

Today's ruling is a blow to the Bushmen. Xoroxloo Duxee died of dehydration in 2005.
© Survival

There was outrage today as Botswana’s High Court denied the Kalahari Bushmen access to water.

The Judge ruled that the Bushmen were not entitled to access an existing water borehole on their lands or to drill a new one inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, one of the driest regions in the world. The hearing of the case was held on June 9, but the judge reserved his ruling until today.

The ruling is a blow to the Bushmen who have struggled without water since 2002 when the Botswana government sealed and capped a borehole to drive them out of the reserve. In 2006, the forced evictions of the Bushmen were declared illegal and unconstitutional by the High Court, and hundreds have since returned to their lands.

Despite the ruling, the government banned the Bushmen from re-commissioning the borehole, leaving them to face what the UN’s top official on indigenous peoples, James Anaya, described as, ‘harsh and dangerous conditions due to a lack of access to water’. At the same time, Wilderness Safaris opened a luxury tourist lodge, complete with bar and swimming pool, on Bushman land; the government drilled new boreholes in the reserve to provide water for wildlife with funding from the Tiffany & Co Foundation; and Gem Diamonds was given environmental clearance to mine in the reserve on condition the Bushmen could not use any of its water.

Bushmen are also being prevented from bringing water to their relatives inside the reserve.

Bushman spokesman, Jumanda Gakelebone, said, ‘This is very bad. If we don’t have water, how are we expected to live? The court gave us our land, but without the borehole, without water, our lives are difficult.’

Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘In the last ten years Botswana has become one of the harshest places in the world for indigenous peoples. If Bushmen are to be denied water on their lands when it is freely provided for tourists, animals, and diamond mines, then foreigners should be asked if they really want to support this regime with their visits and jewellery shopping.’

Note to editors: the Bushmen’s lawyer is available for interview.

The Penan's forests have been devastated by loggers
© Andy and Nick Rain/Survival

A new report has exposed an ‘environment of violence’ against tribeswomen in Borneo. According to the report, released by a coalition of Malaysian human rights groups called the Penan Support Group, there have been repeated cases of rape and sexual assault against Penan women by the loggers who are destroying the tribe’s forests.

They follow allegations by other Penan women in 2008, which the Malaysian government denied but was later forced to confirm.

The report condemns the Malaysian government for giving lucrative logging concessions on Penan land to ‘private companies closely tied to the state government’, resulting in ‘dispossession, destruction, dislocation and impoverishment’ and an ‘environment of violence’ which leaves Penan women and girls ‘highly vulnerable’.

The Sarawak state government has licensed the Penan’s land to logging and plantation companies that have devastated the rainforests the tribe rely on.

The Malaysian Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development has refuted the new allegations. The Chief Minister of Sarawak also denied the previous allegations of rape, saying they were ‘lies’ and an attempt at ‘sabotage’. A government investigation later confirmed that the women’s claims were true.

Officials have continued to dismiss the issue. When the BBC confronted Sarawak’s Minister for Land Development with the statement of a teenage Penan rape victim, he said, ‘They change their stories, and when they feel like it. That’s why I say the Penan are very good storytellers.’

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Logging has brought the Penan nothing but abuse, with rape, violence and hunger now commonplace. For the government to react by calling them ‘storytellers’, and pretending all this is ‘progress’ is appalling.’

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is due to visit some Penan villages on July 22.

Download the Penan Support Group’s report

The Bushmen rely on donkeys to bring water into the reserve.
© Survival

Authorities in Botswana are preventing Kalahari Bushmen from bringing water to their relatives in one of the driest places on earth.

The move suggests the government is stepping up its long-running campaign to force the Bushmen out of their ancestral homeland and into government resettlement camps.

Wildlife scouts have told Bushmen attempting to bring water into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) for their hard- pressed relatives that they cannot use donkeys to carry the water since these are no longer permitted.

Without access to vehicles, Bushmen wanting to support friends and families inside the reserve rely heavily on donkeys to transport water to them. Despite a High Court ruling that says the Bushmen have the right to live on their ancestral lands inside the reserve, the Botswana government has banned residents from accessing a borehole on their lands. In the dry season this makes them dependent on water from outside the reserve, which is extremely difficult to carry without donkeys.

Last month, the Bushmen went to court in a bid to gain access to their borehole. However, the Bushmen are still waiting for the judge to give his ruling; this is scheduled to be announced on Wednesday, July 21.

The new policy appears to be in clear breach of Regulation 25(1) of the National Parks and Game Reserves Regulations which provides that anyone can enter the Reserve ‘by means of… riding a horse, camel, donkey or other animal approved by the Director’. It is presumably on this basis that the Department of Wildlife and National Parks has said that ‘Animal back safaris (camel, horseback, etc.) must be permitted and encouraged’ in ‘low density tourism zones’ including areas of the CKGR. What is not acceptable when a Bushman does it is, apparently, perfectly acceptable when a tourist does it. One pays money and the other does not.

The government has also allowed the opening of a luxury Wilderness Safaris tourist lodge, complete with bar and swimming pool for tourists, and drilled new boreholes to provide water for wildlife only. In the near future it is likely to issue a licence for a diamond mine on Bushman land, for which new boreholes will be drilled, on condition that the mine will not provide water to the Bushmen.

Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘When they realise what’s going on, ethical tourists won’t want to go to areas where they have rights explicitly denied to the indigenous peoples. Botswana says it wants more tourists, yet its actions couldn’t be better designed to put them off. The country’s relentless oppression of its first citizens is yet another nail in the coffin of its reputation.’

The Iroquois Lacrosse team face Germany at the 2006 World Championship.
© justlacrosse.com

The British government has refused to allow an Iroquois lacrosse team into the country because they are using Iroquois passports.

The Iroquois, a confederacy of six tribes who straddle the US-Canada border, are trying to come to the UK for the world lacrosse championships.

The game was invented by the Iroquois and other tribes of north-east North America hundreds of years ago, and the Iroquois team is currently ranked fourth in the world.

Both the US and Canada allowed the team to travel using their own passports, with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton granting a special waiver.

The Iroquois and some other tribes have used their own passports when travelling for decades, as an assertion of indigenous sovereignty.

Delby Powless, a member of the team, told Canadian Press that the team was frustrated at the decision. ‘We have travelled on these passports on numerous occasions. The team is very disappointed with what is happening, but we are trying to stay as positive as we possibly can.’

Survival has launched an appeal on Twitter to persuade the British Home Secretary Theresa May to allow the team in to compete. Email mayt@parliament.uk and urge Mrs May to allow the team in to compete.

Retweet now

Bushman man.
© Survival

The long-awaited judgment in the landmark court case over the Botswana Bushmen’s right to water will be delivered next Wednesday July 21st at the High Court in Lobatse, Botswana.

The case was heard on June 9, with many Bushmen making the long journey to court.

When the government evicted the Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in 2002, it capped the borehole, the only source of water for the Bushman communities in the reserve.

In 2006 Botswana’s High Court ruled that the government had acted unconstitutionally when it evicted the Bushmen and said they had the right to return to the reserve. Hundreds of Bushmen have since gone back home.

Despite the Bushmen’s repeated attempts to negotiate with the government, it still refuses to let them use the water borehole.

The Bushmen, who live in one of the world’s driest regions, are forced to make arduous journeys to obtain water outside the reserve. Since the borehole was capped one Bushman has died of dehydration.

One Bushman said from inside the reserve, ‘We are thirsty and suffering… The single thing we most need is water. It’s a big problem, especially during the school vacation, when we get a lot of children back, and they are used to getting water every day, and they suffer, and we have to walk all night to Kaudwane [resettlement camp].’

Stephen Corry, Survival’s Director, said today, ‘Thousands of Bushman supporters, all over the world, will be supporting the Bushmen in their long wait for justice. Whatever the court decides, it will be a very important day for indigenous peoples’ rights.’

Lush forests are key to the Pygmy sense of identity. Their land informs their culture and provides their livelihood.
© Kate Eshelby/Survival

Members of ‘Pygmy’ communities in Cameroon have issued a clear message in the wake of the Copenhagen climate change talks: their rights to their forests must be respected.

According to the Forest Peoples Programme , the Baka, Bagyeli and Bakola peoples fear that climate change mitigation projects will further exclude them from their forest homes and that climate change is already affecting their forests.

A central plank of current international climate change talks is REDD – reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. REDD projects could help to protect forests and the communities that depend on them, but only if they are developed with the full involvement of the peoples concerned and have the protection of land rights at the core.

The latest incarnation of REDD is REDDplus, but it is the ‘plusses’ – conservation, forest management and enhancement of carbon stocks – that are causing concern for indigenous peoples. Pygmy peoples have suffered both from the deforestation of their lands and from conservation programmes which have excluded them.

Pygmy communities in Cameroon, state they will only accept REDD if their rights to their forests and to free, prior informed consent over projects are respected and if they get an equal share in any benefits from the projects.

“If we are talking about conservation, then the Baka are the best conservationists. We have been living here since time immemorial, and the forest has not disappeared. Those who now claim they are conserving the forest are the same people pillaging our forests. We see sawmills felling large portions of our forest every day. Is it not this same government that authorises the felling?" Daniel Njanga, Cameroon.

Dongria girl, Niyamgiri Hills, India
© Survival

In the third major blow to Vedanta in a month, the Chief Secretary of the Indian state of Odisha (formerly Orissa) has ordered a new investigation into the rights of the Dongria Kondh tribe affected by Vedanta Resources’ controversial bauxite mine.

The announcement comes just two weeks after the Indian Minister of Environment and Forests ordered an investigation on the same topic, and ten days after leading Dutch investment firm PGGM sold its stake in the company over human rights concerns.

A government investigation in March concluded that Vedanta’s mine ‘may lead to the destruction of the Dongria Kondh [as a people]’.

Under Indian law the Dongria Kondh can claim communal rights over the forest land they have historically used or protected.

Vedanta has been attempting to mine the top of the Dongria’s sacred mountain for several years, but has not received the final clearance it needs to begin.

Last year the Environment Minister said Vedanta’s mine would not receive clearance until the Dongria’s forest rights had been settled.

When Survival visited the Dongria in December, it was clear that many of them were not even aware of their right to claim communal land.

Vedanta Resources is majority owned by billionaire Anil Agarwal, who will have to address shareholders’ concerns about these delays at the company’s AGM in London on the 28th July.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said, ‘How many more investigations will it take for everyone to finally accept that Vedanta’s mine would threaten the future of the Dongria Kondh and cause India to breach its commitments under international law?’

Recently-contacted Murunahua man, south-east Peru
© Chris Fagan/Upper Amazon Conservancy

Illegal mahogany loggers are plundering uncontacted Indians’ land in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon, according to a new report by the Upper Amazon Conservancy (UAC).

The report says the logging ‘provides evidence that Peru is failing to uphold the environmental and forestry obligations of its 2009
Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US’ because ‘more than 80% of Peru’s mahogany (is) exported to the United States’. UAC’s report has been released just a month after the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travelled to Peru to meet President Alan Garcia and claimed, ‘The United States and Peru are working together to protect the environment.’

The report also reveals how loggers trick Peruvian and US authorities into believing the mahogany has been legally sourced. The logging ‘will continue until the US government unilaterally rejects questionable Peruvian mahogany,’ it says.

Illegal logging settlement inside the Murunahua Reserve for uncontacted tribes, south-east Peru.
© Chris Fagan/Upper Amazon Conservancy

UAC’s report includes photos of a logging camp and cut mahogany in the Murunahua Reserve, which is supposedly set aside for uncontacted Indians’ sole use, in south-east Peru. It says that logging is ‘widespread’ in the reserve, and that a ‘vast network of logging roads’ used by ‘over a dozen tractors’ connects the reserve to a major Amazonian tributary.

The uncontacted tribes in the reserve ‘lack natural defenses against diseases brought from outsiders and are threatened by any type of contact,’ says the report. It also says the logging violates the ‘Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species’ (CITES), which aims to protect mahogany.

The Murunahua Reserve was recently made off-limits to oil and gas companies because of the threat exploration would pose to the uncontacted Indians living there.

Survival director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘It would be a tragedy for US citizens to continue buying Peruvian mahogany if it puts the survival of uncontacted Indians at risk.’

Download the report

Bushman man.
© Survival

Plans for a major diamond mine on Bushman land are now back on track after being shelved due to the global recession.

Gem Diamonds mothballed plans for the mine at Bushman community Gope, after global demand for diamonds collapsed. However, the mine’s Project Operations Manager, Howard Marsden, is reported to have described activities at the mine as ‘reaching fever pitch’, with recent evaluations showing that the value of the mine has increased to pre-recession value.

Gem Diamonds, which bought the Gope concession from De Beers in 2007, claims that the Bushmen are in favour of the mine. However, the Bushmen have had no independent advice on its probable impact, and are currently struggling to cope with severe water shortages.

In 2002, the Bushmen were forcibly evicted from their lands inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve by the Botswana government. Four years later, the Botswana High Court ruled that the evictions were illegal and that the Bushmen have the right to live on their ancestral lands in the reserve.

However despite the ruling, the Botswana government has banned the Bushmen from accessing a borehole which they rely on for water. Last month the Bushmen went to court in a bid to gain access to the borehole, when the judge reserved his ruling until an unknown date.

Gem Diamonds was given environmental approval for their operation at Gope on condition that ‘boreholes developed…by [the company] … will be utilized strictly to provide water for the mine.’ The obvious intention of the government is to ensure that Gem Diamonds does not give the Bushmen access to water even though the mine will be built in the heart of one of their communities.

Survival and the Bushmen have always maintained that the Bushmen were evicted to make way for diamond mining. The government denies this, claiming, amongst other things, that the Bushmen were removed for conservation purposes.

However, as the UN’s top official on indigenous peoples reported, the government’s apparent concern for conservation is ‘inconsistent with its decision to permit Gem Diamonds/Gope Exploration Company (Pty) Ltd. to conduct mining activities within the reserve, an operation that is planned to last several decades and could involve an influx of 500-1200 people to the site, according to the mining company.’

Latest reports from Gem Diamonds claim that the Gope mine will involve an underground mine for the first ten years, followed by open pit operations.

Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘The UN says projects should not happen on indigenous peoples’ lands without their free, prior and informed consent. Everyone knows this has never been secured for the Gope mine – indeed, for years the government said Survival was lying about diamonds in the game reserve. If the mine now goes ahead, Botswana will once more be seen violating Bushman rights bringing more condemnation about Botswana diamonds. What will it take for the government to realize that diamond buyers are not immune from ethical considerations?’

Vedanta Resources plans to mine the Dongria Kondh's homeland.
© Survival

A firm managing pensions for more than two million people in the Netherlands has sold its €13million (US$ 16million) stake in the notorious mining conglomerate Vedanta Resources.

PGGM investment firm made ‘intensive efforts’ to engage with British company Vedanta over its plan to mine the sacred mountain of India’s Dongria Kondh tribe for aluminium ore. But according to PGGM, Vedanta refused to participate in a roundtable discussion on the issue.

PGGM stated that Vedanta had made ‘insufficient improvements’ on human rights standards, and was ‘burdened with growing reputation risk, which may also translate into financial risks.’

PGGM joins the Norwegian government pension fund, the Church of England, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and others in dumping its Vedanta shares after a sustained campaign by the Dongria, local activists, Survival and others.

The news comes less than a month before Vedanta’s Annual General Meeting in London. Last year the meeting was beset with protestors including Bianca Jagger.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said, ‘This news from PGGM is very welcome. Its story is a salutary tale for investors still trying to ‘engage’ with Vedanta on human rights issues. The company does not listen to investors: the only reasonable option is to sell up now.’

A Jarawa man and boy by the side of the Andamans Trunk Road
© Salomé

A report published by UNESCO has called for the immediate closure of the Andaman Trunk Road, which cuts illegally through the Jarawa tribal reserve.

India’s Supreme Court ordered in 2002 that the highway must be closed to protect the Jarawa, but the Indian government has kept it open.

Survival International is also calling for the closure of the road.

The Jarawa resisted contact with outsiders on India’s Andaman Islands until 1998. The UNESCO report brings together research on the tribe and their territory, which is also home to endangered animal and plant species and is the most significant tract of rainforest remaining on the islands.

The report’s recommendations also include protection of the Jarawa’s territory from violation by poachers and other outsiders, and education of local Indian settlers and government officials about the Jarawa and their rights.

It concludes that self determination ‘has to be the ultimate aim of any process that will involve the Jarawas – to help them negotiate with a rapidly changing, predatory world that exists around them.’

Download the UNESCO report

Paul McAuley has spoken out against logging on indigenous land
© FENAMAD

The Peruvian government’s attempt to expel British environmental activist Paul McAuley from the country has been blocked.

A statement from the Ministry of the Interior was given to McAuley on 1 July, ordering him to leave the country by 7 July.

But McAuley applied to a local court for an injunction on the Ministry’s order. That injunction was granted two days ago, permitting him to stay in Peru in the immediate future.

Many people and organizations in Peru and around the world have shown their support for McAuley after the Ministry’s order was made public, including Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights and leading Peruvian indigenous organization AIDESEP. Hundreds of people have protested in the streets in Iquitos, the town where McAuley lives.

McAuley is president of the Loreto Environmental Network and has spoken out against environmental and human rights abuses in northern Peru for years. Survival has written to Peru’s Minister of the Interior, Octavio Salazar, urging him to revoke the order and permit McAuley to remain in Peru.

Penan armed with blowpipes block road as Shin Yang logging trucks approach.
© Survival 2009

Nomadic tribespeople in Borneo are blockading a road to stop loggers destroying their rainforest.

Members of the Penan tribe have mounted the blockade in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, to stop the destruction of the forests they depend on for their survival.

Malaysian timber company Lee Ling is logging in the area:http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/penan, and there are plans to clear the Penan’s forests completely to establish plantations of fast-growing trees for paper production.

The Penan say the plantations will leave them with nothing. They live by hunting, gathering and fishing, and will have nowhere to find food if the forests are chopped down.

Penan protesting at the blockade in northern Sarawak say they have experienced a violent attack by a logger. They are also going hungry, because manning the blockade means they are unable to spend time finding food.

The protestors include nomadic Penan, and those living in settled villages.

One Penan man told Survival, ‘We can’t live in a plantation environment. It is like asking fish to live on the land.’

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘How many more Penan protests, and how much more intimidation by the loggers, will we see before Malaysia recognizes that this land belongs to the Penan?’

Four Ayoreo-Totobiegosode men make first contact with the outside world in 2004.
© GAT / Survival

A man belonging to the only uncontacted tribe in South America outside the Amazon basin has been sighted near a region targeted for deforestation by Brazilian cattle-ranchers.

When spotted, the man hid behind a tree, and later fled. The next day an abandoned camp, a clay dish, and game ready for cooking were found nearby.

The man is one of an unknown number of uncontacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode Indians living in the dry forests of northern Paraguay. The Totobiegosode have lost huge swathes of their land in recent years to cattle-ranchers, such as the Brazilian firm Yaguarete Pora S.A.

A clay dish for toasting seeds was found where the isolated Indian was spotted.
© GAT/Survival

The man was seen just to the south of the area owned by Yaguarete. In a letter to the Paraguayan government about the sighting, already-contacted Totobiegosode leaders said, ‘We are very concerned about [our relatives still in the forest]. They’re threatened by the deforestation in that region.’

Yaguarete was recently fined $16,000/£10,500 by the Paraguayan authorities for concealing the existence of the Totobiegosode in the area where it was given a licence to work. Earlier this year, the company won Survival’s ‘Greenwashing Award’ 2010 for ‘dressing up the wholesale destruction of a huge area of the Indians’ forest as a noble gesture for conservation.’

Survival director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘This is further proof the Indians exist. It’s going to make things even more difficult for cattle-ranchers like Yaguarete in the future.’